


The Årsgång

by Shapelybutts



Category: No Fandom, Original Work, Scandinavian Mythology
Genre: F/M, Fossemnen, Gen, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Mythology - Freeform, Scandinavian, The Elder Mother, Trolls, Yearwalks, Årsgångs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-02 23:23:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8687641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shapelybutts/pseuds/Shapelybutts
Summary: A thrilling tale of a hunter in mythological Scandinavia, of love, of death, of rebirth.





	

            Every once and a while, when the moon is bright and the trees reach with their skeletal limbs in a fruitless attempt to take it, clattering like bones in the night, fingers, reaching - Every once and a while, when a night is still and silent like the depths of the earth, the bowels of a grave, the silence of the dead - Every once and a while, time itself blurs and twists into strings of fate, ways between worlds open to those who know them, and the Vættir walk the paths of mortals in an instant that happens only once a year, once in a lifetime, once only for those who dare venture beyond the veil.

            But nonetheless, mortals still take the journey, that day between years, full of smokeless illusions and truthful visions. The future of your life is revealed in the cloak of the Goat, in the images of the constellations that scatter the sky of its lining.

            Beware his truths, the ones that mislead. Beware his lies, the ones that succeed. Beware, you who dares to trespass the realm of the unknown, for the Goat is indifferent to your horrors.

            It is a particular man whom this tale is about. His future was foretold in the folds of the Goat’s cloak, in that star-spattered void. He was a man of the Earth, a hunter, a man who was unafraid to take the light from a beast’s eyes, the meat from its body, the hide from its corpse. His hands were stained with the rust of flesh, devoured for his survival

Once, in this story of his, he lived in the far north, near the end of the world in a dense forest of leafless trees and whispering ghosts, where endless fields of snow lay like shining mounds of glistening dull light.

            Deer roam in those parts, bucks of racks with as many points a rose thorns. Wolves prowl those lands, teeth as sharp as needles. Bears haunt those woods, blind and fearsome as ghosts of vengeance. Ice encases that land, blue and chilling, and glaciers peak between the fjords and valleys near the ocean - a great thing that rumbles and hisses with each freezing wave, a death and boon to many.

            It is a beautiful land, a dangerous land, as empty as the bottom of an old well, as bountiful as the sea. If you don’t treat your life there with the utmost care, you will die, frozen and alone, as many have before, and as many will.

            This particular man lived in a cabin of timber and brick, under a roof of thatch. A smoke house sat within a clearing like an old man, and an outhouse stank in another. His father and grandfather had built the house together, but now he was the only occupant, alone.

            His cabin, isolated as it was, was the only home within miles. The nearest village was half a day away, and it was tiny, with only a miller, some farmers and their families, and the goatsmaid who sold milk, cheese, and room in her barn with the goats, if she was willing to pity the rare traveler. He was in love with this goatsmaid, a beautiful woman by the name of Kjirsten, fair and lovely. Her red lips were the color of fresh blood, her hair as golden as the sun. Her fine eyebrows quirked at every amusement, and her laugh was the tinkling of tiny bells. Many had tried to woo her, and all had failed, but for some strange reason, the hunter was an object of interest to her. Every major occasion, as the festivities died down and the villagers grew more and more drunk on celebration and mead, they would hide in her barn and kiss until the sun rose. No one knew of their hidden relationship, save for their goats, who were the only witnesses of their love.

            Now, the land was in deep winter at the time of our story - the snow was thicker deep than the roofs of some village buildings, and horse travel was near impossible. The New Year was approaching, along with a storm, and the people were preparing for a holiday inside the safety of their homes and near the warmth of their hearths, close to family and close to heart. They would tell tales of the feats of their ancestors, of heroes, and of gods. They would tell fables, superstitions, tall tales. Stories would be told of the Vættir, the children of Eve who hid from God because of their dirtiness, who are cursed to forever be bound to the earth. The huldra, the beautiful woman in the deep forest who lures men to their deaths. The myling, the remaining soul of an unbaptized child who forever asks for a burial. The fylgja, a shapeshifting dæmon who watches over young children and youths. All are of the earth, of the other side of the known, in the shadows of humanity. They lurk in the forests, in caves, in the hidden nooks of homes. They aren’t good, and they aren’t evil, but somewhere in between - between worlds, between realities, between above and below the earth and seas. Morally ambiguous is what they are, and care and caution must be used when dealing with them. They never lie, and they never tell the truth - everything is in question with them, their intentions, their feelings, their goals. Watch carefully what they tell you, always carry iron, and never, never tell them your real name.

            Now, our hunter was preparing for the Yule in a very different way than the others. He was going to attempt an Årsgång, a Year Walk, a journey through the lands of the Vættir, to the other side of the world - the same as the one we live in, yet not, full of strange creatures and indefinite paths to wherever one might go. He would spend the night before Yule in his cabin of timber and thatch without a fire, without food, without light. He would leave it at midnight. He would travel to a sacred place, a secret, and circle it thrice. He would see his future.

            And so he spent the day before Yule in that way. No fire was awakened in the fireplace, no food was eaten, and no candle was lit. And when the day passed, and when the depths of night approached with the slowness of a black, brightly stippled insect, he donned his garbs and cloak, his fur-lined boots, and hooked his largest, sharpest dagger by his side, and left on foot to a hidden spring, a secret to all but him, and not far away at all.

            But as he trekked there, on a familiar path, it seemed to go on and on forever and more. The more he walked, the denser the forest grew. The more he became wary, the more silent it became, like the birds would hush as he passed, like the mice and rodents underfoot would quiet and still as he trod onward. He grew weary after a while, for by then he had walked what seemed a very long ways.

            And so he approached an elder tree, old enough to rise a bit out of the ground and snow, and cut off a thick stick from the trunk base to walk with.

            Immediately, an Elder Mother appeared, dressed in smoke and leaves, rage written on her face, a finger was missing from her right hand, the stump pouring a green tinted blood onto the forest floor.

She demanded, voice harsh and watery like the dapple of leaves in the autumn sky,

            “Why have you chopped me up and taken my finger? I have done nothing to wrong you, and yet you have done me an injustice.”

            The hunter became very frightened at the sudden appearance and implications of the Elder Mother and replied with earnest,

            “Elder Mother, I had no idea that this tree was yours. I sincerely apologize for this mistake. Let me wrap you wound, and do something to make up for it.”

            The Elder Mother seemed to consider it for a moment, then another, and just when the hunter was about to ask again for forgiveness, she demanded again,

            “I will let you bind my hand and take my finger, but I have lost a powerful jewel to a fossemnen under a waterfall down the river one thousand paces from here. You will go do what it takes to take it back.

            “Only then will I forgive you. Until you complete this task, you will never see your world again. You have until the sun rises.”

            At this the hunter had hope, and said,

            “Elder Mother, I will do as you ask.”

            The Elder Mother let the hunter bind her hand with boiled cloth, stuck together with watered honey, then vanished back into her tree, which now had healed over where the hunter had cut his walking stick. The hunter had then set down to the river of which the Elder Mother had told him of, and walked one thousand paces with the current, where he happened upon a waterfall.

            The waterfall was thrice the hunter’s height, crashing down a steep and rocky cliff, slick with moisture and green moss. It poured in small rivulets down the edges, zig-zagging, staircasing, and it formed a small pool at the base, clear as crystal, as the glass of a window.

The hunter carefully climbed down the cliff, nearly falling several times, each with a stop in his heartbeat, and saw that there was a cave behind the water’s veil, of which music of the like he had never heard before was coming from, seeping through his ears and into his mind.

           The music was unearthly, alluring, and the sweetest sound the hunter had ever heard. From what he could tell, it was a lute, tuned to perfection, and played with the utmost talent, and other than that, beyond description. He walked into the cave, entranced, and saw a beautiful young man playing a seven-stringed lute. His skin was the paleness of snow, his hair the dark of the night, the light from a candle playing off of it as the water played over rocks. His eyes were silver like the hunter’s dagger, and his voice, when he called out to the hunter, was like the deep timber and sweetness of the church bells at the village on Yule day.

            The man asked,

            “Why have you come here? Not many can find this place,”

            The hunter was wary, for he had heard stories of the Vættir’s cunning. One should always be careful with dealings of any Good Folk, and never give your name.

            The hunter said,

            “I have come to recover a jewel of high power for an Elder Mother one thousand paces up the river, for I have cut one of her fingers off without realizing that the tree I cut the stick from was hers. I ask of you to give it to me, please, for unless I complete her task before dawn, I will be stuck in your world forever.”

            The fossemnen replied,

            “If you can give me some stolen meat, I will give you the jewel.”

            The hunter was worried and said,

            “I don’t know of anyone near who I can steal meat from before the sun rises. The village is further than I can walk there quickly and back. How can I accomplish this task?”

            The fossemnen donned a grave look and replied,

            “There is a troll who roams the area, and he is scaring the animals who visit and come to drink my water away. It is lonely under here, so I would be grateful if you slayed him and stole the meat from his bones, from his body as proof of your deed. If you do this, I will give you the jewel. I swear on my lute and music.”

            The hunter agreed, for if a fossemnen swore on his instrument and song, it was as good as done, and left the cave under the waterfall. He circled the area for three hours, stumbling through the dark and brush, and finally heard rather than saw the troll lumbering a hundred paces ahead. He crouched and snuck forward towards the troll, taking care not to step on any twigs or leaves, until he was a mere ten paces away. The troll seemed to be searching for something, muttering under his breath.

            The hunter snuck further unto the troll, working his way to his back. Then, with a roar, he grasped his dagger in both hands and struck the troll in the back of the neck, severing his spine, loosing blood and spinal fluid upon him and the troll. But the troll did not die immediately, and when he fell to the ground, a gigantic tree sawed away into oblivion, he whispered to the hunter with his last breath, his last words,

           “I curse you… mortal, I curse thee, and you will kill the third person you come upon, beloved or not, just as you have killed me…”

            At this the hunter grew frightened, but cut some flesh off of the troll anyways for the fossemnen and wrapped it in cloth. He walked back to the cave under the waterfall, that roaring rush of water as it was, and presented the meat to him.

            The fossemnen took the meat gracefully and said,

            “You have greatly helped me, so I will give you a bit of foreknowledge along with the jewel. You will have a great loss in the near future. Beware, my friend, for it is impossible to escape.”

            Now the hunter was truly frightened at the fossemnen’s words. He became more and more agitated as he left the cave once more with the jewel and walked back to the Elder Mother’s tree. By the time he reached her, he was shaking in fear.

            The Elder Mother walked out of her tree and saw the hunter and said,

            “I see you have the jewel I asked for, and I also see that you are frightened. I must ask why, for you have done what I have asked, and I am curious to know what has happened. Tell me, what has occurred to make you so scared?”

            The hunter replied,

            “I have killed a troll to steal the meat from his flesh, but as the troll lay dying, he cursed me to kill the third person I come upon, beloved or not, just as I killed him. I know not who I will next come upon, and I fear that they will be someone I know and love.”

            The Elder Mother listened to his tale and appeared to have decided something. She said,

            “Since you have been so truthful and apologetic to me, I will grant you a boon. The next person you come upon, since you have already met the fossemnen and I, will not die but instead turn into a tree spirit like I am.

            “I grant you this, and I must now ask you to leave and complete your journey to the spring up ahead.”

            The hunter almost asked how she knew that he was on an Årsgång, but she had already disappeared into her tree like a fish into the depths of a bottomless lake.

            And so the hunter continued his journey to the spring without any more mishaps and circled it thrice.

            It was then that he seized, and visions came to him in fast flashes, and some all at once, scattering his brain, making his eyes roll up to his crown, causing a spasm to fell him to the snow-coated forest floor.

            He saw Kjirsten in a pool of blood.

            He saw a hanging of a man, the face shadowed beyond sight.

            He saw a beautiful woman become a tree in the middle of a room.

            When the hunter came to, he wept, for he knew that Kjirsten would be the one he would kill. He wept for a long time, and his tears ran into the spring, salting it beyond repair.

But then his tears dried, and he rose to his feet, and begrudgingly returned on the path to his cabin, seeing no one and nothing along the way.

Upon his return, he saw that there was a light inside his house, visible from the windows, flickering and silhouetting a person walking around. Rage overcame the hunter, an unspeakable rage, for someone had broken into and entered his cabin without his leave.

The rage he felt was like nothing he had ever felt before. It felt foreign and unnatural, and it was like the bonfires of Samhain, of Yule day. He saw red, and felt the blood pounding through his body, and rushed inside with his dagger and stabbed the person inside right in the heart. The person fell, and with it the red from his vision, and he saw that Kjirsten was on the floor, blood pooling from her breast.

The hunter screamed in anguish, howling like an animal in agony, like the crash of the fossemnen’s waterfall, like a man who had lost the love of his life. He screamed so hard for so long, his voice became hoarse and disappeared. He then sat there on the floor, looking at the sin he just committed, at the body of his beloved, and his guilt rose and baited him, taunting him, and so with a sudden determination he got up and grabbed a coil of rope from his closet, attached with many strong knots it to the roof beam in the ceiling, and hanged himself.

The last thing he saw, before his face turned blue and spots grew in his eyes, was Kjirsten’s body disappearing into the floor, then a sapling rising, rooting itself from the floorboards, cracking them apart. It grew and grew, reaching through the roof in a matter of seconds, bursting through it in a bright flash of green leaves and perfect brown slender limbs and a shower of torn thatch and wood, and  took over his sight in a storm of bright leaves and pink petals, and then, and then…

And then he saw the ghostly form of Kjirsten, Kjirsten… with her hair of gold and fair face, pale as the snow, walking from inside the trunk, confused, then shocked as she saw her beloved, the hunter, hanging from a rope from the ceiling, dangling above an upturned chair.

The last thing he saw before his vision darkened and disappeared, going, going… was her running towards him, screaming, crying, begging him not to leave.

But she was not fast enough, and so he did.

 

And if one would travel to the far north, to a certain cabin and walk up a forgotten path and into the brush, you just might find a salty spring, the foliage around it wilted and dead.

 

The End


End file.
